The press comments on it, however subdued and timid and halting, leave
no doubt about the real mind of India in the matter. The truth has been
pointed out by the _Manchester Guardian_ and the _Nation_. (Beg your
pardon, sir, for mentioning the _Nation_ again). The former, in its
issue of March 15, remarked: "It is we, who govern India and not the
Indian people. The initiative in all financial proposals necessarily
comes from the government we appoint in India, and these cannot reach
the light of public discussion in the Legislative Council or elsewhere
until they have received the sanction of the Secretary of State for
India here. For Mr. Chamberlain to throw off upon Indian people the
responsibility for originating and devising the 100 million contribution
is as unconvincing a rhetorical exercise as the House of Commons has
witnessed for many a long day. The responsibility from the first to the
last is his and that of the Indian Government. We have said more than
once, and we repeat it that in our opinion a wise statesmanship would
both find better uses in India for India's millions and employ India
more advantageously for the common cause by using more of her manhood
and less of her money," I will not quote the _Nation_, sir, which is on
this point as explicit, if not more, as the _Manchester Guardian_.
Now, sir, you know that India has been very eager to fight for the
Empire. She has supplied you with about 350,000 troops in this war,
paying for their services and equipment herself. But 350,000 do not
represent even a fraction of her man power, the whole of which she was
prepared to throw in this struggle. While Australia and Canada and
Ireland have either rejected conscription or are shirking, India has
been clamoring for it. You can no longer say that you could not utilize
India's manhood because of the prejudice of color. That shibboleth has
been shattered by this war and, we hope, for good. The colored people of
Asia and Africa are fighting in numbers alongside of the best European
troops. Poor people! They believe they are fighting to make the world
"safe for democracy!" You cannot say that Indians are lacking in
fighting qualities, because the existence of them in a high degree they
have proved conclusively in face of difficulties, by no means light and
contemptible. That the Indian soldier can hold his own in Europe, even
better than the European soldier in Southern Asia, has been established
beyond the shadow of a doubt by the experiences of this war. Why, then,
won't you use India's manhood and relieve her of this financial exaction
which she can ill afford to meet, without suffering egregiously?
INDIA'S TEEMING MILLIONS WANT FOOD AND
KNOWLEDGE OF THREE R'S
The question for India's teeming millions is not "how to live well" but
how to live at all. There is no question of comforts for them. What they
want, and do not get, is sufficient and nourishing food and a knowledge
of the three R's. Your Government is unable to give them the first, and
persists in refusing to give them the second; yet when an Indian
publicist loses patience and says "slavery has deprived Indians of
wealth, honors and freedom, and has reduced them to destitution and
starvation," your Viceroy in India cites it as an instance of depraved
journalism and a justification for the gagging of the press. He
complains that "there are papers in India which magnify the ills from
which she suffers" and "which harp upon plague, famine, malaria and
poverty" and "ascribe them all to the curse of an alien government." May
I ask, sir, if it is not a fact that millions in India die of famine,
plague, and malaria? Is it not a fact that the curses and the appalling
effects of them, are directly or indirectly traceable to poverty? Many
countries on the face of the earth do not grow food sufficient for
themselves while India does. Why then should India alone suffer from
famines when her food supply, once in a while, falls short of the
ordinary year of agricultural "prosperity?" If even during famine years
India can supply food to other nations by exports of wheat and other
grains, why can't she keep that food at home and feed her own hungry
children? Why should plague have stayed in India so long? Why should
malaria exact such a heavy annual toll there? The reason is obvious.
Because of the ignorance and poverty of the people.
Let us assume that India has not grown poorer under British rule, though
there is abundant evidence to the contrary, that the masses have become
poorer and are becoming poorer every day; let us also assume that in the
matter of education India was worse off under native rule--_i. e._,
before the introduction of the British rule--a period of history when no
other part of the world was any the better. Is it not a matter of shame,
that after 150 years of British rule, when most of the other national
governments in other parts of the world have reduced their illiteracy
almost to zero point, India should still have more than 90% of its
population illiterate. Is it not a matter of shame, that of all the
grain producing countries of the world India alone should be so
miserably situated as to be unable to supply sufficient and nourishing
food to her sons and daughters. Don't you think, sir, that the Indians
have reason to feel sore when they see that the food grown by them is
denied to them; that it is almost snatched from their mouths; that
others should eat the food which is grown by them, that even in the best
of years millions of them must be contented with only one meal a day,
and that of the coarsest grain.
Do you remember, Mr. Lloyd George, how bitter you felt against the
capitalist, when you yourself in your boyhood, felt the pinch of want?
Have you forgotten all that you said in the Lime-house speech? I repeat
that the sufferings of the British laborer and workingmen, the trials of
the British poor are nothing compared with those of the Indian ryot and
the Indian workingmen and the Indian clerks in your employ in that
country. Yet you have no feeling to spare for them, and those that have,
you and your Government brand as malcontents and seditionists. Don't you
think, sir, that the Indian ryot and the Indian poor are being crushed
under the weight of two capitalisms superimposed upon each other--one
foreign and the other indigenous? When we ask for freedom to manage our
own affairs you say we are not fit to do so. But what can we do to
ourselves which will be worse than what you have done us? If left free,
we might bring to book the indigenous capitalists whom, in the interests
of your own capitalists, you have been supporting and fattening. But
even if we fail to do so, we shall at any rate have upon us the burden
of only a single weight. Your colleagues say that in refusing
self-government to India they are actuated by devotion to India; that
they do not want to hand over the millions of India to the tender
mercies of a small minority of educated and wealthy men in whose hands
the government will inevitably drift. Supposing it does, it will be easy
for the masses to keep the minority in check. They can revolt and rebel,
but under your Government the bureaucracy is all powerful. The truth is,
sir, that the condition of these very millions, in whose interests, you
say, you are reluctant to give power to the educated and the wealthy
few, is a standing condemnation of your government there. The educated
minority and the wealthy few are fairly well off under your regime. It
is the ignorant ryot and the millions of workingmen and women who
suffer. In the words of one of your distinguished writers (W. Lily),
they do not live but just exist.
Recently the _Times_ said that the British were "the trustees of the
welfare of India's millions." Who are these millions for whom you are
trustees? Are they those homeless, educationless millions who get only
one meal a day or are they those who have benefitted from your schools
and are wealthy? If the former, you have failed in your trust. If the
latter, they are quite fit to manage their own affairs. It was only the
other day that Mr. Austen Chamberlain was reported to have said
(_Times_, London, March 30) at a luncheon given to him and the India's
so-called representatives at the Imperial conference (one of whom was a
Lieutenant Governor interested in extending India's sphere of
subjection) that "India will not remain and ought not to remain content
to be a hewer of wood and a drawer of water for the rest of the Empire."
Noble words these, full of hope and encouragement. But what a sad and a
crushing acknowledgment of the present helpless condition of India. It
is a truthful statement for which the Indians ought to be grateful to
Mr. Chamberlain. At the present moment India is a mere "hewer of wood
and a drawer of water" for the rest of the Empire. Against that her sons
protest, and will continue to protest, as long as the wrongs of the
country are not redressed, your press act, your sedition laws, jails and
prisons notwithstanding.
The position, Mr. Lloyd George, is pathetic. When we ask for more outlay
on education, you say, no, the condition of the finances will not permit
of that. When we point out the way to find finances, you say, "no,
further taxes are impossible and retrenchment in public expenditure in
other departments undesirable." When we say, "give us the management and
we will do it," you say, "no you are unfit." The result is that you will
neither educate the masses yourself nor will you let us educate them.
Yet you hold their ignorance a valid ground for refusing us our right to
manage our own affairs. When, however, you want money for Imperial
purposes you raise loans, impose taxes, and reduce public expenditure on
education and public works. You have done this not only now, for the
purposes of this bloody war, but you have done so in the past in
building railways for your merchants and to fight your wars in Africa,
in China, in Afghanistan, in fact, all over the old world. It is true
the present is a trying time for you and you may have a pretence of
justification in this crisis in your Imperial life. But so long as you
refuse the conscription of wealth in your home islands, what right have
you to impose this conscription of India's money resources? You have not
forced the dominions to make monetary contributions. In fact you have
advanced them over L140,000,000 from your own funds. You have not so far
called upon the British capitalists to pay even a fraction of their
wealth. You have simply taxed their excessive profits. Why should you
have made an exception in the case of India? India is the poorest part
of the Empire. Yet it is she who has been selected for this exceptional
treatment. She had already made lavish gifts of money and provisions and
equipment. Her gifts were in entire disproportion to her means. Compared
with your dominions' resources and their money sacrifices India's
contribution stood higher than those of the former. Yet you selected
India for this compulsory money contribution because India is the only
part of the Empire which you could thus treat. India is the only part of
the Empire which has been forced to give $500,000,000 as a _free gift_.
Even the fabulously rich United States which have made huge war profits
from you and your other allies have not thought of a national gift. Yet
imperial sophistry represented by your imperial publicists and
officials, represents that Great Britain exacts no tribute from India
and makes no profit out of her connection with India and that she rules
India simply out of philanthropic and humanitarian motives.